Hotstar reached record 18.6 million viewers at the same time in IPL Final

Cricket in India draws thousands and millions of viewers and the technical infrastructure is pushed on over-the-top (OTT) services such as Hotstar and Sony Liv during big events. One such event is the Indian Premier League which draws millions of concurrent viewers in each match. That number reached a record high of 18.6 million concurrent viewers during the IPL 2019 final between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad. The previous best for Hotstar stood at 12.7 million concurrent during Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers Bangalore earlier in the tournament.

Hotstar had set a target of 300 million unique visitors for the tournament and breached that while also witnessing a 74% increase in watch-time as compared to last year.

The streaming service added an interactive social layer during matches which allowed the viewers to engage with the activity on the field. 64.4 million users engaged on the platform’s Watch ‘N Play social feature. These users answered 1.2 billion Watch ‘N Play game questions, and sent over 5.9 billion emojis and 43.5 million comments.

“The achievements of this season once again bear witness to Hotstar being the most preferred sports destination for the country. With technology as our backbone and our all-round expertise in driving scale, we are confident we will continue to break global records and set new benchmarks with each passing year,” said Hotstar’s Chief Product Officer Varun Narang.

In the first three weeks of IPL 2019, viewership on Hotstar reached 267 million surpassing last year’s record of 202 million viewers registered for the entire season.

IPL 2018 witnessed a best of 8.26 million concurrent viewers, the service officials had confirmed in an interview.